


burning bridges

by starkcasm



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clarke-centric, F/M, Slow Burn Bellarke, The Monty/Clarke friendship that we all have been waiting for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 08:30:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3522446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkcasm/pseuds/starkcasm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the rescue, Clarke leaves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	burning bridges

**Author's Note:**

> a gift fic for kara (co-founder of the clarke griffin defense squad)
> 
> Written before the finale aired but oh man did I call it or what, guys????

In the wake of the rescue, after they miraculously saved all 44, Clarke is alone and shattered.

Her clothes are the only things keeping her body from falling into pieces and even then they do nothing to stop her nightmares. She keeps her distance as the members of Camp Jaha fill in the 44 about what happened while they were “gone” (gone is easier to say than kidnapped, tortured, marrow sucked out and experimented on)and Clarke knows that no one will ever forgive her and she doesn’t want them too anyway. She doesn’t deserve their forgiveness after everything she’s done (for her people, she reminds herself, but it doesn’t help take away the guilt) so she plans to leave. Because, god, she doesn’t want to see Jasper’s face after he found out about Finn or Harper’s when she learned about the hundreds at Ton DC. She couldn’t even look at Bellamy after she left his sister, his everything, to die in the name of an alliance that didn’t work out. 

With her few treasures (her dad’s watch and Finn’s origami deer and Monty’s Clarke’s special moonshine) tucked away in a backpack, Clarke Griffin heads towards the gates before sunrise to finally finally let her loved ones find peace in the fact that she’s finally finally gone. She’s surprised to see Monty waiting there for her, pack in hand. She can’t explain to him why that makes her cry but it does. And though she refuses in hushed whispers to take him along, the hug he gives her lingers for the first five miles. He had slipped her a radio mid-hug and swore up and down that he would wake up the entire camp before he let her go without it. She clutches it to her every night but never uses it. She rather die than bother any of them again.

She doesn’t really know where she wants to go. She has no home now, no sense of impending, suffocating duty so she just wanders. Clarke feels liberated and terrified but her nightmares are still there and she feels Octavia’s hate and Raven’s cries searing into her despite the distance between them. So she keeps walking and it turns out that it is surprisingly easy to stay unnoticed without the weight of 100 lives following her every step. 

She walks to the ocean first. She discovers that she hates sand but the ocean makes up for it tenfold. She loves the ocean, loves the smell of the sea and its vastness makes her feel small and powerless and its comforting for someone that had too much power in her hands for far too long. She sits for hours and listens to the sound of waves crashing against the shore over and over and overandover and over again. Clarke wonders if the shore gets tired from the constant beating. 

The night she sees a shooting star, she takes her father’s watch and sends it away in the waves. It’s silly but she hopes that it will help her dad find the mermaids he used to tell her stories about. She catches fish and eats them wrapped in seaweed for two weeks before the smell of salt makes her nauseous and she decides to go keep moving. The ocean is beautiful but she can’t make it into a home. 

Five days later, she’s back in the forest and relishing the lack of fish taste in her mouth. She stockpiles berries and nuts and edible plants and roots into her pack and smiles slightly when she feels a blueberry explode in her mouth. She considers finding Lexa but crushes the urge. She thinks she is still angry, knows she would have never ever done the same but she can understand it. She’s so tired of being angry but she isn’t ready to forgive. Not yet. Not when Lexa was willing to leave her people behind, to leave Bellamy behind for dead when he was the reason she got an offer in the first place. She feels tears well up in her eyes, her anger leaving her in the only way that it can now that she doesn’t have grounder warriors and bombs on her side. She settles down for the night and drinks enough of Monty’s moonshine that her emotions are washed out by a warm hum that thrums throughout her whole body. Its not a long-term solution, but Clarke is learning to settle for the temporary. 

In the morning, she decides to find the desert. There’s a crispness in the air and she feels winter coming and she knows she isn’t prepared for it. The clothes she has are barely enough for the autumn nights as it is and a fire can only burn for so long before she’s considered an easy target. She wants somewhere warm and goddammit, she’s going to have it. Clarke makes it halfway there before she realizes that the desert is just sand and extremely cold nights and gives up. Winter is terrifyingly close and she desperately needs to find a way to be warm. She finds a bunker that seems safe enough, there are art supplies and she spends her hours trying to paint the ocean. She traps a stray deer in a grounder pit and skins it. The fur keeps her warm but she can’t remove the smell of blood no matter how hard she tries. Winter in the forest is miserable and Clarke misses the sun. 

Six months away from home and Clarke wakes up to noise on the radio. She still sleeps with it at night but this is the first time she’s heard anything. Monty’s voice comes in between intervals of static and she dashes out of the bunker to find better reception. 

"Clarke? Clarke, oh god, Clarke please tell me you can hear this. This is a long shot, you probably tossed this away but Clarke if you didn’t, if you still have it, please respond pleasepleasepleasepl-"

She hears noise in the background, but nothing clear enough to distinguish but she’s cried enough in the past year to recognize the sound and she knows she swore off her people but it’s Monty, wonderful, kind Monty who offered to abandon everything so she wouldn’t be alone, and suddenly responding is no longer a question. She clicks on. 

"Monty? Monty? I’m here! I’m here! What happened? Talk to me, Monty! Monty!”

She hasn’t spoken out loud in weeks and her voice is raw and and uneven but somehow Monty understands. He breathes a sigh of relief and Clarke nearly breaks down. It has been so so long since someone has been happy to hear from her. 

"Clarke? Oh thank god, Clarke, listen, you gotta come home. Your mom, Bellamy and M-mi-" Monty’s voice breaks and his broken sobs take over and Clarke doesn’t need to hear anymore, doesn’t even protest coming home, not when Monty needs her, not when her mom and Bellamy are on the line. 

”Mont? Hey, listen to me okay? I’m coming, I’m coming back. Just please tell me what you need. What happened?” Clarke can feel her throat burn from sudden use and she feels nauseous as all the horrible possibilities hit her. 

There’s a shuffling going on on the other side and Monty’s cries are suddenly distant and Octavia’s voice takes over. 

”It’s another airborne virus. We don’t think it’s warfare, just bad luck. Abbey has been unconscious for two days and no one knows what it is. I’m going to search villages for a cure but you have to come and help.” Octavia’s voice is harsh and curt and leaves no room for argument. Not that there is one; Clarke already knows she’s coming back. She lets the radio go quiet as she gathers her few things as fast as humanly possible. She estimates that she’s four days trek from the camp. 

She makes it back in two.


End file.
